all the reasons why
by Roses of Sharon
Summary: Hanabi has never known him, though she has often loved him. KibaHanabi.


At first, she chooses him because she knows her sister wants him

Disclaimer: I do not own _Naruto_.

Summary: Hanabi has never known him, though she has often loved him. KibaHanabi.

all the reasons why

_At first, she chooses him because she knows her sister wants him. _And this is a bad way to begin a relationship, almost the very worst. She cannot think of any examples of how much worse it could be, but she knows that there is always something worse. That is the way life is.

_At first, she chooses him because he is what she is not_. Which is not as bad a way to begin a relationship as the reason before it, but hardly a good one. She chooses him because she knows they will fight, because he is a dog and she is a cat, and because they are so very different, and she does not know how to live in a world without conflict.

_At first, she chooses him because she has so very much to learn from him_. Which is a far better reason to choose him, because she wants to learn. She wants to learn what it is to be _pack_, to have a family to always rely on, a clan that fights together for _loyalty _and _love_, not only for some strange sense of familial duty, some belief that they are stronger, have more power together.

_At first, she chooses him for all the wrong reasons_. Which is good only in the sense that she can grow, this way. She can learn - to love, to live, to laugh.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

Her sister never tells her who she loves, and she tries her best to (_lielielie_) make everyone believe that it is Uzumaki Naruto. Maybe it was, once. But by the time Hanabi is old enough to realize what she can truly do with Byakugan, and by the time she can interpret all the little signs that Hinata exhibits, it is Inuzuka Kiba.

Hanabi does not know a name when she first discovers this, but she knows the face, in a way that only Hyuuga can. Hanabi could find this _boyman _in a crowd of millions, so well has she memorized his features. They are not particularly pleasing to the eye - not like the Hyuuga that mill about the compound, with their aristocratic, refined expressions. He is _different_, wild and dark, and Hanabi can see what her sister - who hates the Hyuuga so, so much - finds intoxicating in this stranger.

His name is _Inuzuka Kiba_, she discovers. No one cares much among the Hyuuga exactly who Hinata is teamed with, but Hanabi finds a way. Her teacher is _Yuuhi Kurenai_, and her other teammate is _Aburame Shino. _

But Hinata's diary entries are filled with the escapades of the dog boy, the Inuzuka. _Kiba did such-and-such_, she writes, and _Kiba said this_, and _Kiba attacked that_, and _Akamaru_. Akamaru is the dog, and Hanabi knows this only because Hinata said it once in her hearing, when they came to pick her up for the mission.

She says it with a peculiar feeling in her voice, almost like warmth, almost like love, almost like softness, and Hanabi has the feeling that her sister is not greeting the dog, but its master.

And Hanabi is jealous, and maybe a little vengeful - because Hinata is loved, as she is not, and because Hinata has a _team_, a team that will love her and guide her and teach her and need her, and no one needs Hanabi, because Hanabi is not even the heir.

And so Hanabi always watches out for _Inuzuka Kiba_ now, in the streets, always makes sure to watch him and his dog, and makes sure to be polite and quiet in his eyes, and accomplished.

She wants him, because he looks at Hinata with warmth in his eyes, like she knows Neji-nii-san did once, and she has never felt that warmth.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

She sees more and more of him these days, because he comes by the compound more and more, always on some mission to take Hinata-nii-san out to train, or for a mission. Hanabi is truthful enough to recognize the emotion she feels when she realizes this for pleasure.

And as she sees more of him, she sees also what lies under the thin veneer of humanity. It is not that he is cruel, or pitiless, or merciless. It is that he is… _less _human, and more… more beast. More animal.

He is almost like one of the dogs he so lovingly trains, and she is a… she is a _cat_. She is feral and _catlike_. Not like the indolent, lazy housecats she so often saw in the windows of houses, but like a tiger, she imagines. She has never seen one, but she has seen video and pictures, and she thinks that she is like one.

Mostly in that she hunts alone.

She thinks that there is a lot you can tell about a person by the way they hunt. Some people, she knows, are patient. They wait, and wait, and wait for the perfect prey, the perfect catch. They are the people you have to be afraid of.

People like the Inuzukas hunt in packs, and that is what she watches for. He is never, never alone. He is surrounded by people, and he is never without Akamaru. When he leaves Hinata at the Hyuuga House, he invariably has found a companion - Yamanaka Ino, occasionally, or Aburame Shino; Uzumaki Naruto or Nara Shikamaru.

But when he smiles, when he laughs, when he fights, there is an undercurrent of… of _canine_, under the human. Under the human, there lies a beast, willing to fight beyond the point where the human has given up, with a loyalty that never dies, no matter what. It is the canine that she watches for.

It is the canine she trains for, the flashes of sharp white teeth and sniffing nose. She trains for him, because she knows she can never be like him, and she knows that she will never try. She knows that people are drawn to people like themselves, underneath; _opposites_, the world says, but Hyuuga know better.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

It takes a lot to be in pack, she learns. Because Hanabi lives for herself and for her father, for the betterment of the Hyuuga and of herself, and Kiba lives for _Inuzuka_. It is an abstract thought, an idea, but she can see that he believes in it.

The words _Clan _and _Pack _mean something to him, mean something besides an overwhelming burden and expectations impossible to live up to and a duty to people that you may or may not despise.

And she wishes that she were Inuzuka sometimes, but she loves her white eyes and her _bluepurpleblack _hair, and she loves, deep inside, her sister and her father and Neji-nii-san and the mother she has never known. So Hanabi can never truly wish to be anything but Hyuuga, but some days she dreams of things she cannot him and would not want.

Would not know what to do with, for what does one do with emotion? What does one do with love?

And she has always been taught that that is - would be - a burden, would be something less then what she has and what she has always had. _But Hinata-nii-san_, a voice whispers in her mind. _Hinata-nii-san is all the stronger for it._

She listens to that part of her sometimes, but more often she does not - dares not. Because to do so would be to abandon something, to admit something else. To admit that she is weak, that she has been fighting for the wrong things all along, and that she is too much of a coward to change now.

But Inuzuka Kiba believes, believes beyond all else in his family and his friends and his companions and his teammates, and she wishes she had that kind of belief, that kind of trust. She wishes she has that kind of person to believe in.

_Not Hinata-nii-san?_ a part of her inquires, and she viciously stomps it down.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

Sometime after, she thinks, he finally learns her name - _Hyuuga Hanabi_, and it sounds good as he tastes it on his tongue - she learns that she was wrong. That her sister may have wanted him once, and no longer. That he is more human, more grounded then she gave him credit for - that sometimes the mind rules the heart. That he is alone, just as she is, and that is why he seeks people out.

She learns that he is everything she is, deep inside, and that he hides it - that they really are not opposites, that they are not alike, they are two sides of the mirror: the same, and different, all at once.

And she thinks that she grows, in love for him, and in herself, because she is _stronger _now. Not strong enough, because she still cannot defeat Neji-nii-san, and because she cannot admit that Hinata-nii-san is stronger then both of them, but stronger.

Maybe someday it will be enough, she thinks, watching his back as he walks away from the Hyuuga Compound. Maybe someday she'd be able to follow him out those doors, take his hand and smile at him, watch his fangs flash back at her.

But for now, she thinks that she can be happy with what she has, because she has more then she thought. She just needs to learn to see it.

And that is what he has taught her.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

_In the end, Hanabi chooses him for all the right reasons_. Sometimes, that isn't enough. And sometimes, she doesn't want it to be. Because it's not time yet. It's not time for her to walk out that gate and never look back, to join another clan and steal away with the love of her life on an adventure such as she has never been allowed.

Someday, though, she thinks through hooded eyes. Someday, it will be enough; maybe not with him, and maybe with, but when that day comes she will be strong: she will be ready to throw aside the chains binding her and tear away the chains, and she will survive the sun.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

THE END.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

So I wasn't going to write this, but… Neon Genesis told me she liked this pairing, and the first line suddenly popped into my head. And then I was like… _well. _So I wrote it down, thinking that I would never use it, and especially not in conjunction with this pairing, but then… the next line popped into my head.

And so on, and so forth. So I began writing it, thinking _Oh, well, maybe it will be finished within a page or two, I can post it or not, and it will all be over_. Because SasuSaku is my OTP, and I couldn't imagine myself writing another pairing and making it _long_.

But then it stopped being a romance, and kind of began being a character introspection piece with some romance in the background, and, well, it just grew from there. And I kept thinking how everyone says that I write Sakura far too much, and am slighting the characters - like Ino and Hanabi and whoever else - and I totally agree. Like, I enjoy writing Sakura only because of SasuSaku, which, as said, OTP.

So yeah. Stuff happened, this happened, and here is my awesome far-too-long author's note. If you actually finished reading this, press 1. Er, in your review. And do not add shift. Just a little thing for me, please? I just want to know who finished reading this. If anyone.


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